Remembering Rose

Chapter Twenty One- It was the Eyes

Her POV:

Adam had the prettiest eyes for someone who knew how to brutally murder. They were the shade of pale smoke lit by a silver moon and every shared glance reminded me of rain. Evie warned me in the beginning that eyes like Adam Rosen's would be the death of me. I thought she meant he would take my life...not my heart. 

Our first meeting would have never suggested he had the ability to steal what I thought I no longer possessed, but Adam loved to prove people wrong. He broke the stillness of our gilded home one October morning. Evie and I had been spying on his approach since we noticed his red car making its way down the secluded drive; we whispered about his purpose, confident he was nothing more than one of Step-Father's many goons. We hid behind the gossamer curtains as his car, that fiery roaring thing, came to stop in front of the wild roses and watched as he stood. 

Nothing struck me as I looked out at him except that he was obviously tall. 

"He's much too young to be one of Step-Father's men," Evie whispered as her eyes scanned him. I could see her searching for the clues that would give his identity away to her, but my eyes couldn't find anything telling. As he advanced to the guarded doors of the house, his eyes traveled up the ivy covered bricks of our Victorian walls to the window Evie and I were sat in. We didn't dare move. I couldn't quite see his eyes then, but had I my heart may have been won over in that moment where he was just a tall stranger coming to visit. He waved to us, but in that moment the gun at his hip revealed he was no stranger to this old house. I turned immediately from the window, letting the curtain fall to shield me.  

That was the first time Adam came to the house. I remember Evie spied on him the whole time. She watched him with cold eyes as he entered our door, walked the crowded downstairs, and disappeared into the door of Step-Father's office. She pried open an old vent and we listened as the boy with the new car spoke to the man that kept us hidden. Her distrust spurred her to grace the landing of the stairs with myself as her shadow to watch when he finally exited the office. She watched him look up at her, watched his eyes find me, watched him smile where he shouldn't have. She blocked my view of him until the front door ate his footsteps and she never forgot that smile.

Later, Step-Father would arrange for him to live among us in our golden prison. Evie warned me that boys like him weren't to be trusted, boys that could smile in the den of wolves were either mad or conniving. However, Adam liked to prove people wrong especially when it was Evie.

Adam became a secret of mine; kept behind garden walls and empty halls. It wasn't his easy smile that captured me when I thought I couldn't be caught, but his playful silver eyes. Eyes that always seemed to draw me in. Eyes that could speak when words couldn't convey just what needed to be said. Eyes that could find me when a room was full. 

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"Ronnie?"